Too much talk so far

Rodrigo de Oliveira Andrade Latin America correspondent, SciDev.Net

On Monday, the session “North-South and South-South Collective Actions” promised to be a great opportunity to put into practice some of the tasks mentioned during GCARD2’s opening ceremony, since the session’s main goal was promoting inter-regional learning and capacities through mobilising and strengthening innovative networks to demonstrate and enhance their impacts on the Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D).

However, after the brief presentation of some collaborative research platforms, such as The Platform for African-European Partnership on Agricultural Development (PEAPARD) and also the Brazil-Africa and Brazil-Caribbean Innovation Marketplace, the institutionalist discourse predominated. Paulo Duarte, from the Brazilian Enterprise for Agricultural Research (EMBRAPA), for example, presented Brazil’s experience in implementing the Platform.

During his talk, Duarte said that this marketplace aims to benefit primarily smallholders with focus on agricultural innovation by the engagement of different actors involved in the generation of agricultural knowledge.

“The technologies developed by EMBRAPA were important for the development of Brazilian agriculture and there is interest from other countries to exchange knowledge with Brazil. The agriculture is vital for the economic and social development of Africa, Brazil and Latin America-Caribbean and EMBRAPA have projects in Africa to stimulating the ethanol producing and five other projects in different Latin American countries, such as Bolivia and Colombia,” he said.

So far, it the GCARD sessions appear to be more interested in sharing knowledge and their own institutional experiences.

This blog post is part of our coverage of GCARD 2012, which takes place on 29 October–1 November 2012 in Punta del Este, Uruguay. To read news and analysis on agricultural research please visit our website.